Former lawyer given 11-year ban after company goes bust owing £43m

The government’s Insolvency Service began investigating former lawyer David Allen, 62, after his company, Work Legal-E, was liquidated in 2013.

Mr Allen took money out of his payroll as well as employment agency company, which he was not entitled to do.

The investigation also found that Mr Allen filed VAT returns under-declaring the company’s liabilities at £5m.

He took three unauthorised payments from the company amounting to over £1.6m, which are not supported by contractual evidence.

In a meeting with HM Revenue and Customs in 2013, he explained that he under-declared the company’s liabilities because it was “tight on money”.

However, the probe discovered that the company actually did have enough funds to pay off the debts.

Following Work Legal-E’s collapse he went to Dubai and interfered with attempts to regain money from creditors.